Why we have to start living more like the Na'vi now

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

It is called Jevons Paradox. The problem is not that its not possible to make more efficient use of electricity and then actually use less, the problem is that people chose instead to use more uses. So if your bill for power is 30$ a month and you get more efficient appliances, you may reduce it to 15$. Then you have $15 that you can use for example to get more appliances.

Hey, you are supposed to be the idealist here! I mean that is something I would write when I'm feeling moody, but at the moment I'm rather neutral, which is surprising considering how I felt yesterday, but I digress.

We should form a education duo and teach people how to save electricity and tell them about the wonders of modern day efficiency. I don't even know why I'm sort of joking with the subject, but I feel rather weird right now.

The prime example of this is light sources. Whenever there was in increase in efficiency - from burning candles to natural gas to electric bulbs to halogen bulbs to fluorescent bulbs to LEDs the reaction of people was not to keep light usage at a constant and save energy, but to increase light usage and keep energy usage at a constant (or even increase).

But candles are so nice. I could literally stare the flame for many minutes without blinking, because there is some kind of primal beauty in fire, I don't know. Come to think of it, have you ever calculated if it would be more environmental friendly to use candles as a light source instead of your average light bulb, halogen or what have you. I think the manufacturing of the bulbs in itself is the process most hazardous, but this is just guesswork on my part, because you are the expert on these things.

This leads to a long path from people using candles only when needed at night to have some light on the way to the bathroom, to read a story or therelike to people now having permanent lights at their homes that illuminate the path to the house, the staircases or people just leaving lights on when not needed because it does not cost somuch anymore.

I think this is the kind vanity that I would be guilty of if given the possibility to do so, but at least I acknowledge that fault within myself. Lights are very pretty at times, especially in the dark autumn nights when there is not yet snow to reflect what little light there is, so it's really really dark. And sometimes it's also fun to turn of all the lights and just stare into the darkness.

People get larger christmas decorations, build computer casemodding with light effects or use groovy indirect background illumination. All of these are certainly cool, nice and in a way worth something, but instead of reducing consumption, the benefit of increased efficiency goes into having more luxuries, amenities or fun stuff. That doesnt have to be bad, but the point is that it does not really save energy in the end.

The scale of consumption though is not always that linear. For example, the power consumption of fancy LEDs used in casemodding usually use but a fraction of the energy the entire system uses. I'm not into the whole blinking computer stuff myself, because I prefer mine as silent and elegant without any sort of glittery light and other nonsense.

Same is true many many other times. For example with cars - people now buy cars that are twice as large but only use as much gasoline as their old small one. What would make sense would be to get a new small car that uses even less gasoline. But people dont do that.

Cars are rubbish these days. I once spent a while going about in a car shop and looking at the efficiency numbers, and even the most modest 1.0L engine wasn't even close to impressive.

Or computer power - it would certainly be possible now to build a computer that has the capabilities of a desktop PC from 10 years ago that uses a fraction of the resources and energy than 10 years ago. But that rarely is done (except in speciality cases and then usually as a "second computer", for example a mobile one). Instead the increase in efficiency is used to build even more powerful computers that in the end use up more energy than the one from 10 years ago.

We should really have long and useful conversation about this subject, because it is a current favourite of mine, and I happen to know quite a lot about it. I currently have a computer that is fully awesome, and it uses as much power idle as the old 2004 variant that is on the same desk as backup computer. The computing powers aren't even comparable due to the laughable scaling and whatnot, and my main computer still uses less power while still doing loads of more stuff.

And while I am guilty of getting performance at the cost of power consumption, it is because I need it, and while my computer isn't the best in raw power consumption, it's certainly top tier on the desktop side. I could give you examples of much worse configurations and components, but I will not go there now.

Consequently nowadays Desktop PC power supplies have 300 or 500 Watts compared to 200 Watts some years ago and Graphic cards have water cooling systems to get rid of all the heat that comes from that more efficient graphic processors...

My sweet Aurora, I know you mean well and all, but don't discredit yourself when speaking about things you know only so much about. While all of what you say is true, it is merely a one side of a much larger whole. Again this is a subject I could tell you much about, and clear some misconceptions you might have, but I can only do so if you want me to.

These are just examples but the problem is widespread enough - end especially it applies to industry in which case the choice between saving energy and increasing production is a no-brainer for the management...

And while you are once again correct, we both know the problem is inherent in the system itself, that encourages and forces this kind of behaviour.